Previous Iphone users

[underdone]

Im due for an upgrade at the end of the month (im with Telus) and im stuck between the milestone and iphone 3gs. One of the big selling points for the droid for me is the gps. My gps in my suv is finished and if I don't have to buy a new one that would be great. The real downfall for me on the iphone is that you can not multi-task. I have restricted interent at work and currently spend alot of time surfing the net on my blackberry, i like being able to be on msn, facebook and youtube all at the sametime. What are the major advantages to the droid over the iphone and what does the iphone have that you wish the droid had? I've been reading alot of reviews online and they seem to lean both ways. I don't use my phone for work its more entertainment device for me. The one thing thats bothering me about the droid is the limited memory for apps and games. From what I understand they can not be saved to the SD card and it is limited to the 250mb. Also with the blackberry and windows based phones all games and widgets (when purchased) are tacked on to my cellphone bill, does the droid or iphone work the same way or do they have to be purchased with a credit card? Im in Ontario if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance

 

[stig]

I think you answered your question in your question when you said:

"i like being able to be on msn, facebook and youtube all at the sametime"

iPhone's don't do multi-tasking... Droid Does!

 

[spottyelephant]

I could write a very long post here, but ill try keep it quick.

Drop/Milestone pros:

- Better hardware
- Multitasking
- several gps software solutions available
- an equivalent for 95% apps on the iphone, and a large number of apps not available on iphone
- future upgrades will breath new life each time e.g. full adobe flash
- high-res screen which make videos look excellent
- widgets

Drop/Milestone cons:

- occassionally experiences slowdown when multitasking a lot of things
- keyboard isn't very good (i never use it except to play snes and megadrive emulators)
- games department is lagging behind iphone A LOT. This is changing fast though, literally in the last 5 months more and more quality games are coming out, and we're seeing less "bedroom coder" games. ExZeus and Raging Thunder 2 are identical to iphone counterparts, so that is promising for the rest of the year.

iPhone pros:

- always silky smooth in operation (due to no multitasking), and no force closes of apps acting up
- itunes / appstore / purchasing integration is much better and transparent. With android - you need to set up a google checkout account, so when you purchase an app it authorizes from your credit card, and not your phone bill
- more polished apps and games in general, but android is RAPIDLY catching up and will likely be extremely close by year's end
- iStation compatability!

iPhone cons:

- no multitasking
- closed system (no adobe flash, no freedom in app installation, no anything apple doesnt approve of)
- common as muck!
- CRAP user interface - its just a really long list with pages and pages of icons that you can 'lose' apps in
- chance of Google being replaced by Microsoft for everything from search to maps. MS stuff is severly inferior
- definately not getting lots of new google services such as goggles, sky, voice, listen etc. and anything else google comes up with.

 

[cdl]

I have had a Nokia E71 for over a year, and an Iphone (given to me by my company) for about the same time. I have never had an Android but will probably get a Milestone shortly.
In my opinion, the main disadvantages of the Iphone, most of which you wouldn't have with a Milestone are:

1) price. The Milestone isn't super cheap, but there are some good deals on buymobilephones.net

2) closed system. You can only do with an Iphone what the Prophet Steve Jobs thinks is righteous and good for you. Apple has complete control over what apps can and can't be installed. Imagine what would happen if Microsoft were to approve every single program for Windows... Read this for details:
Apple's draconian developer docs revealed ? The Register

3) no today screen. For me, having a summary of upcoming appointments, to dos, and recent emails on the home screen is fundamental. The fact that I can't have it on the Iphone is extremely irritating. Androids, on the other hand, can be customized a lot

4) no imap idle support (which the free k-9 on Android does have). On the iphone, you can have push email from an exchange server (maybe from gmail, not sure) but not from a standard imap mailbox. To me, this is a deal breaker. I couldn't even find any app which supports imap idle, so the fact that the Apple app store has billions of apps is irrelevant to me, if what I need isn't there!

5) no multitasking - another deal breaker for me

6) touch screen only. I may be the only person on the planet to feel this way, but I hate touch screens. Even after one year of owning an Iphone, I'm still very slow at typing on that touchscreen. Navigating on web pages with small buttons is very annoying, as is trying to move the cursor to a specific character in a text. I like physical qwerty keyboards with flat buttons, just like the Milestone, and am not actually comfortable with non-flat keys, but this is very subjective

7) If you have more than 1 email account set up, the Iphone doesn't provide a consolidated view. The built in email client of Android 2 does, but unfortunately doesn't support imap idle. K-9 supports imap idle, but not a consolidated view
I'm not really interested in using a smartphone as a music player, nor in facebook twitter myspace etc, so I have no idea how the two systems differ in these respects.

Hope you found my comments useful!

 

[iWannaBeAdored]

If you jailbreak the 3GS you can download Backgrounder and a multi-tasker UI which allows you to select your running apps like the Palm Pre does. I'd go for the iPhone 3GS. Motorola Droid is nice (I have a Milestone) but If I had the choice I would choose the 3GS.

 

[Szadzik]

If you jailbreak the 3GS you can download Backgrounder and a multi-tasker UI which allows you to select your running apps like the Palm Pre does. I'd go for the iPhone 3GS. Motorola Droid is nice (I have a Milestone) but If I had the choice I would choose the 3GS.

Lack of homescreen kills iphone as a phone for me completely.

 

[ColHavoc]

If you jailbreak the 3GS you can download Backgrounder and a multi-tasker UI which allows you to select your running apps like the Palm Pre does. I'd go for the iPhone 3GS. Motorola Droid is nice (I have a Milestone) but If I had the choice I would choose the 3GS.

Problem with that is the 3GS running firmware 3.1.3 can't be jailbroken. That would be another con.

Personally, coming from a 3GS to the Milestone (Telus) i'm VERY please with the device. I use it more than I did my 3GS for almost everything. The one thing that I miss from my 3GS was the iPod program. If music isn't a big deal (and even if it is) I would highly recommend the Milestone, it is a great piece of hardware complemented with a great piece of software.

 

[cdl]

Problem with that is the 3GS running firmware 3.1.3 can't be jailbroken. That would be another con.

Even if this weren't the case, I wouldn't want to give my hard earned money to a company that doesn't want me to use the phone the way I want it!

 

[slatyford]

why would you want to upgrade to 3.1.3 on the iphone when theres no real upgrade there.
I thought 3.1.3 could be jailbroken but not unlocked but in the UK you can get it unlocked from o2 in anycase

 

[hawrai]

I have just come from iphone, The only thing I miss is Itunes apps / movie store, apart from that I have been pleasantly surprised with Milestone. - be wary of battery life - on parr or little below Iphone in my experience.

Strangely enough, with all the apps, games and good points surrounding Iphone, I found myself being borred with using it

 

[Brendanmurphy]

I have just come from iphone, The only thing I miss is Itunes apps / movie store, apart from that I have been pleasantly surprised with Milestone. - be wary of battery life - on parr or little below Iphone in my experience.

Strangely enough, with all the apps, games and good points surrounding Iphone, I found myself being borred with using it

I find battery life on the milestone to be awsome i went 2 full days. Listening to some music and light browsing a couple phone calls and texting and i had about 20% battery left. By full days i mean 7am - 10 pm